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km\ki Selections 



OF 



POEMS. 



WITH A 



Trilogy and Oration, 

BY / 

JOSEPH T^WILSON. 



Hampton, Virginia : 

Normal School Steam Press. 

1882. 



^mmpE a "^kw WiiEi 



Original Selections 



OF 



POEMS 



WITH A 



Trilogy and Oration 



BY 



JOSEPH T. wii.s0m'. .::~--^ 

^^■:\ g 1882 V 
. No...2:.>.}o -^v^ 

xi:^/v OF ^rf^^^\^^^Wy^ 



I 



Hampton, Virg-inia : 

Normal School Steam Press. 

1882. 






Copyright, 1882. 
By J. T. Wilson, 



AD VEE TISEMEJS T. 



Reader : — The contents of this volume — loritten at 
different times during the last fifteen years^ were written 
not with a view of 'publishing them in this form ; not to 
make a hook. Having acquired the habit of penning my 
thoughts upon subjects that presented themselves to my 
mind ; events, and circumstances, and happenings com- 
ing within my observation and of my knowledge, I have 
aimed to preserve the memory of them in verse No lit- 
erary merit is claimed jor these productions, nor are 
they savored with poetic genius; the aiithor is not a schol- 
ar — hardly a student — and without ambition to appear 
in public as a critique or historian, but having publish- 
ed these writings in several newspapers, I now, at the 
suggestion of friends, publish them in this form. As 
the subjects are those which concern the NEW RACE 
and its freedom most, they are written in its language 
and voice. The oration was not intended for publica- 



tion^ and only at the earnest solicitation of the members 
of Cailloux Post^ before whom and in the presence of 
several hundred people it loas delivered, it is published 
now^ and published just as delivered. That^ since 1860, 
a new race has been springing from the loins of the old. 
races and tribes which have inhabited the United States 
since 1620, no one of course will deny^ and, that these 
poems are the voice of that New Race., I submit to the 
judgment of the public, to whom they are submitted. 

J. T. WfLSOJY. 

NorfoJh Va., May, 1882. 



DEDICATED 

TO THE MEMORY OF THOSE WHO FELL 

AT OLUSTEE, FLORIDA, 

FEBRUARY 20th, 1864, 

AND THOSE WHO FELL AT 

PORT HUDSON, LOUISIANA, 

DURING THE SEIGE, 1863, 

IN DEFENCE OF THE UNION, 

By The Author. 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 

Advertisement -- ----- 3. 

Dedication, -------- 5. 

Andre Cailloux, ------- 9. 



The Black Allies, 
The Negro Statesman, 
The Maid of Olustee, 
Buried on Shore, 



iS. 



Tribute to the Brave, ------ 29. 

New Market Heights, ----- 39. 



Make zuay for liberty he cried, 
Made way for liberty arid die di 



Montgomery^ 



10 VOICE OF A NEW RACE. 

In 1863 General Banks called for volunteers to capture a 
very formidable battery on the Mississippi River, before 
Port Hudson; the First Regiment Louisiana Native Guard 
Volunteers responded. This regiment was composed and 
officered by Negroes, save Colonel and Lieutenant Colo- 
nel. 

In the charge Captain Cailloux, of New Orleans, was 
wounded, and lay forty days between the two lines, where 
he died 

AXDRE CAILLOUX. 



He lay just where he fell, 

Soddening in a fervid summer's sun, 

Guarded by an enemy's hissing shell, 

Rottenniug under the sound of rebels' gun 

Forty consecutive days, 

In sight of iiis own tent, 

And the remnant of his regiment. 

A. flag of truce couldn't save, 

J!To, nor humanity could not give 

This sable warrior a hallowed grave, 

Nor army of the gulf retrieve. 

Forty consecutive days. 

His lifeless body, pierced and rent, 

Leading in assault the black regiment. 

He lay just where he fell. 

Nearest the rebels' redoubt and trench, 

Under the very fire of hell, 

A volunteer in a country's defence. 

Forty consecutive days, 

And not a murmur of discontent, 

Went from the loyal black regiment. 



VOICE OF A NEW RACE. 11 

But there came days at lengch, 
When Hudson felt their blast, 
Though less a thousand in strength, 
For "our leader" vowed the last ; 
Forty consecutive days 
They stormed, they charged, God sent 
"Victory to the loyal black regiment. 

He lay just where he fell, 

And now the ground was their'a, 

Around his mellowed corpse, heavens tell, 

How his comrades for freedom sweari. 

Forty consecutive nights 

The advance pass-word went, 

Captain Cailloux of the black ro.rrim Mit. 



12 VOICE OF A NEW RACE. 

THE BLACK ALLIES. 



"It was admitted that these Negro regiments saved our 
army . " — A mc^-icati Conflict. 



The caDDons ceased their tHunder, 

About the close of day, 
And Seymour's host was routed 

On the phiins of Olustee. 

Ah ! Stop, there were three thousand 

Of Af rit,'s noble sons, 
Who entered in this conflict 

On the plains of Olestee, 

And Seymour loudly shouted, 

Amid the leaden rain, 
''In, my boys" and save us, 

On the plains of Olustee. 

Though weary from the marches 

Of three successive days, 
They bore the brunt of battle, 

On the plains of Olustee. 

Where, wher'^ are they ? its over ; 

The battle's lost, not won. 
And ihe moon is gently rising, 

O'er the plains of 01u«itee. 

Are they too, retreating ? 

Not all, the answer came : 
Six hundred now lay sleeping, 

On the plains of Olustee. 

Ye sable mothers, widows, daughters. 

Weep not for the slain; 
Rather crown with wreaths of honor, 

The Black Allies of Olustee. 



11 iiiEo emfiE] 



/ insist that by the law of the laud, all per- 
sons, zuithout distinetion of eolor, shall be equal 
he fore the law. 



Sumner 



14 VOICE or A NEW RACE 

On the 20th of December, 1871, Charles Sumner, a Senator, repre- 
senting the State of Massachusetts in the Senate of the United States, 
offered his bill known as the Civil Rights Bill, as an amendment to the 
General Amnesty Bill, then pending before that body; feeling a deep 
interest in both of these measures— one proposing pardon to those who 
took up arms against the National Government, and the other propos 
ing Equal Civil Rights to the Negro race— I ventured to hear the dis- 
cussion of the measures from which this legend takes its origin . 

THE JSTEGRO STATESMAi^. 

Buried deep boneaih the towering crest 

Round which stoims in their passage 

From sky to earth, circled so oft, so harmlessly; 

Lived a single spark of fire: 

Mankind had never seen the spot, 

Angels the soil had ne'er trod. 

Deep in the bowels of the earth, 

It lay buried by the hand of God. 

Sweet zephyrs from the fatherland, 

Not the sulphurous gales of hell, 

Breathed on the louely dweller there: 

Nature, — God! the nutriment of all good, 

Fed the smouldering, single spark of fire. 

Ages passed by. Vesuvius stood beetling 

O'er the calm placid waters, — 

Neapolitan's highway to the seas. 

The world in its revolutions felt the shock. 

As Lisbon fell victim to the quaking earth ; 

And swore 'twas Nature bursting from her confines^ 

To assert her right mid-air. 

She came unheralded, save by the surging sea 

Simultaneously rending her rock-ribbed 

Shores, upon which her tc^rror-stricken populace strovCy 

The guard at Pompeii's gateway, saw 

The protruding peak of the colossal mount, 

Suddenly enveloped in a sheet of flame, 

While Pompeians and Herculanians 

Vied in frolicsome revelry, — 

And gave the unheeded alarm; 

And Pompeii and Herculaneum 



VOICE OF A NEW RACE. 15 

Fell in the consuming fire. 
Sat a Negro thus pondering o'er 
The unheeded lessons of the past. 
Sat gazing at ''Liberty " perched high 
Upon the National dome, waiting — 
O ! 'Twas a great day ; 
The learned men of the nation, 

Gathered under the canopy of our Goddess' shadow, 
Deliberately to discuss, intentionally to argue 
The rights and wrongs of the people, 
Waiting patiently, yet hoping and fearing, 
The approaching hour of ten. 
Thousands hither and thither urgently 
Bent their way to tbe House or Senate, 
To hear of a nation's treasury depleted, 
Of pockets filled therefrom, or of a race 
Oppressed and cheated of their rights 
In their native land by their friends. 
Consulting Mnemosyne, thus he murmured to himself: 
"This magnificent structure, 
Monument of the heroic endurance of my race. 
Whose labor builded it, within whose walls 
To- day, are to be praised for it, yea, rewarded. 
Son of Astrea, noblest in the Assembly, 
Amego! George and Dumas lisp thy name! 
Will rise up in his might of argument, 
To attest his devotion to ' God and the Right.' " 
Stupored with these remembrances. 
In an unguarded moment 
When all around was bustle and stir, 
He leaped from the lattice-cushioned sofa, 
And exclaimed, "I am free! " 
Then back as on Port Hudson r*)ad, 
Where Cailloux led the charge. 
Pierced then by bullets for freedom he fell. 
Ten o'clock struck ; he aroused 
From his joyous lethargy. 
The chimes jingled again ; 
The keen December air bore the news afar 



IH VOICE OF A NEW RACE. 

Up through aisles, corridors and narrow passageways 
He joined the national multitude. 
Pressing to the Senate galleries 
To hear, to see a witness to be. 
Oh! but how &ad, how sickening the scene; 
He turned away from the chamber 
House of his friends, cold and dejected, 
To the unpitying warmth of a heartless world, 
Priendless and alone, despairing on earth to dwell, 
Or with mystic Ate to commune, 
Lest; the fiendish prediction of his end 
Should surely come to pass. 
Deep in his erect manly form 
There was a sacred dweller; 
Sacred, because life drew from it vitality. 
Perchance Adam felt its glow 
When nature shrank from his embrace, 
And he left alone in inobedience, 
To choose for posterity. Eve's estate, 
Its future weal or woe. 
'Twas not said of the soul, 
"Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return." 
The curse however contagious, ne'er reached the spot. 
Deep in the bosom of the American patriot 
Lives a single spark of fire ; 
No fumes from brutish passions, 
Nor Serevansum gales disturb 
The lonely dweller there: 
The winds of misfortune may whistle 
Around his unprotected form; 
Storms of prejudice attack its cerements 
And bind liim captive to oppression; 
But breezes from the eternal regions 
Of God's hal)itation, where caste is lost 
In the glorious equality of equal rights 
Feeds that slumbering spaik of fire. 
Ignited sparks first began and fanned to flames 
By winds through nature's lanes. 
Shall we forget i 



I 



VOICE OF A NEW RACE. ' IT 

FDled Toussaint's mortal frame with fire, 

To sustain though Napoleon raged and reigned all 

France and the East, 
The cause of equnl rights on Ilaytian plains. 
And when the conqueror to his lonely prison came, 
His soul departed from the accursed clay 
To where a perfect justice ever reigns. 
The wrongs of centuries pnst. 
Wrote by the oppressor's pen, 
■"Mercer," to the toiling millions explanation lends, 
Of outrages upon the weaker by the strong. 
Now comes the indignant storm; 
Vista, too, joins Vulcan's skill and might, 
While Washingtonians vie with Baltimorians, 
In festive dance and shout, 
The guard at the National wicket 
Saw the fire of indignant justice rise. 
Rise above a cruel nation's crimes, 
And gave, tho' unheedtd, the alarm 
Of the brewing civil storm. 

South Carolina's outbreak, too, as did Baccari's before, 
Heralded the consuming' fire 
That Virginia and Georgia shall fall victim to. 
Not the red lavi: that ran in fiery streams 
Through the streets when Del Gracio fell. 
In the metropolis beautified her lantern post, 
A lonely dwelling, home of the orphan unroofed, — 
But copious streams of human love, 
Binding together man to man as brothers, 
Guaranteeing in common bond, equality to all 

Midnight I dark and stormy, clouds 

That all that day hung about the heights of Arlington 

Gathered o'er the Negro's cabin-home; 

As he knelt beside his vacant couch, 

Ope'd the portals above, 

Furious winds and frozen vapor fell; 

His eyes streaming tears, heart throbbing with fear. 

It seemed an enchantment; 



18 ■ VOICE OF A NEW RACE, 

lie broke the s])ell: his voice rose 
Above the muttering »hunder imploringlyT 
" Oh Lord ! how long shall the storm 
Pour its weight upon my nation ? 
How long shall my race stand the shock ? 
From Howard where Apollo reigns, 
See Minerva's crisp and wrinkled brow 
Basking in the noonday sun. 
Looking to thee, Father, for succor now, 
Turn not thy face in anger ere we fall. 
Filled with sad forebodings, Lord I come 
Thy mercy to im{)iore ; 
A guilty nation yet revolts 
Against Thy holy law. Thy will be done! 
Let this people feel a sinner's erring wrongs." 
Ere his vesper prayer was done. 
Subtle nature did liiin o'ercome. 
He dreamed the nation's forum he'd won. 
To tell the marvelous tale of his race. 
Upon the Senate iioor he stood ; 
A thousand waiting ears were ope'd 
To catch his matchless eloqutmce. 
His voice, like tlie maddened wave that Lisbon felty 
When Neptune 'gainst her rose in might, 
Seemed as he hnrU'd each plaintive word, 
Some smouldering spark to overtui'n. 

sH :}: * * ^: * ;i: 

The grateful emotions which now possess me. 

Are mingled with deej) regret for the necessity 

Laid upon me. of rising to defend 

A scheme of Government, — a measure which 

Proposes equal pul)lic privileges to all. 

Ah ! what is equality before the law. — 

Equality in the law ? 'Tis security to every man 

Given by law, to be liic equal 

(^f every other man in intellect, wealth, affluence and 

influence, if he can be. 
'Tis the opportunity, the letter and the spirit 
Of the law, resting on all alike, 



VOICE or A NEW RACE. 19 

Because I am black, the color of the skin 
>tey enhance the opinion, where prejudice hast root. 
That I am lured by individualism. 
To contend for equal rights. 
But sirs, I speak not for myself alone, 
But for thousands of those who me have sent 
Do I plead here for equal public rights, 
For which jour fathers and our fathers 
In the Revolutionary strife did fight. 
What need have I to repeat the story of 
The Negro'd thraldom ? 'tis old, 'tis pas.-c^d, 
Tho' oft in rhythmic legend told. How 
Our fathers came to be your slaves: 
Borrowed from Herod itus, whose history takes preced- 
ent of yours and all, 
And tells of Afric's sires and sons, 
Our forefathers who 'ueath the burning sun 
With knowledge to diffuse, came down the Nile, 
The arts and sciences your forefathers to teach. 
To teach the way sweet Liberty aid Peace to reach. 
'Twas their theuie, the art of being free. 
While jet your Saxon fathers, barbarians were 
Groping their way in ignorance below the stream. 
Oh, but once successful in the geophonic science, the 

art of letters achieved. 
Your fathers asked the science of the sun 
And 'twas given ; with all these learned, 
Added to the rough Saxon mind and their kin. 
Ah, then they turned, as Caesar marched 
From Gaul marched from victory to conquer Rome, 
Marched from honor to dishonor a throne; 
So your fathers sallied and conquered Africa, 
And made slaves of their conquered prey, if slave can 

be made. 
This is gratitude. Oh gratitude, thou art a gem. 
Thou stranger to the white man — he to thee 
Is no friend, since our fathers he did enslave. 
Their temples desecrate — yea, pillaged for gold's sake 

and called Africa, Egypt; 



20 VOICE OF A NEW RACE 

Twice he called it so, High and Low. 
Vesuvius, ah, do you not remember that 
That mountain's side once stood subdued. 
By peasant's toil ; but one day while the vines 
Were laden well down with fruits, 
No signal — no warning did the peasants have. 
But simultaneous with the deep thunder sound 
The sea and earth shook for miles around ; 
A moment more — Vesuvius vomited forth 
Destruction and consuming fire, Alas! 
To-day at this season men dig deep down 
To find the buried Pompeian town: 
Each Negro that you meet upon the avenues 
Bears within him a spark, nature's spark of 

Freedom's fire, that Godly winds 
Soon may fan to flames that will devour 
The ills and wrongs done him, the hates 
And passions of the Anglo-Norman, the Anglo-Ameri- 
can. 
Poor Indian, he laments the fraudulent treaty 
You made with him, the time he welcomed you 
To his hunting grounds, for since you burned 
his wigwams, chased him o'er the plains. 
Shot him as he lay asleep in the everglades; 
The Indian he is revengeful, warlike, will not yield, 

rather die than be enslaved. 
He waits your coming on the plains, 
And for this you honor him and pension him ; 
When he comes in your midst all the avenues 
And public inns open up to him : 
State dinners do you prepare for him, 
And in your toasts call him " Friend ; " 
And yet the law you made does not recognize him. 
But the Negro though credulous, yet firmly your 

friend, had sooner live 
A Christian slave, than die in the burning sands on 

Sahara's plains ; 
A savage knave, exiled, free as the^tiger's free, 
Which of these are the noblest ? 



VOICE OF A NEW RACE, 21 

Against the Negro, your benefactor, against Christ- 
ians your avenues are closed, 

You bolt by statute the doors of the public inns, and 
tax him for schools 

You will not let his children in — 

And yet in the law he is called citizen. 

What manner in law and recognition is this ? 

Hear me, I prythe thee ! Be patient, for my complaint 
is just. Hearken unto 

Your father's voice, who trembled 

AVhen he reflected that God was just. 

His justice will not always sleep. 

I come not as the prodigal Georgian returned, 

To represent the ill and hate, for they 
have none, of my constituents. 

But, sirs, I come laden with the tears and prayers,, 
sufferings and hopes 

Of four millions of beings, whom your 

Galling chains of inequality doth wear. 

Aught have they ever done to you 

Save to build this massive, magnificent structure, 
filled with comfort and ease. 

Have you forgot ? How, when they gained 

By fate the elective right, they sent you here 

By force of might; then you claimed to be their 
friend ; sent you h(,'re to do what ? 

To enforce by acts, the j)rivileges 

Which custom bars ihem of. and corporations grant 
them not. 

Well, has that pioaiise been kept, which you made- 
mid the thunder of applause at 

Your quarto-annum parley. 

War necessity made the Negro free; 

You agree his manhood with yours the country from 
dissolution helped to save. 

Equal in patriotism even with the bravest brave. 
Equal now in the law, 

He seeks to be raised with those whose lives 

And fortunes he helped to save. 



22 VOICE OF A NEW RACE, 

You who by might of numbers the sceptre sway. I 

swear shall rule, shall govern. 
* * * Here his voice faltering ceased ; 
And stumbling rose upon his feet. 
His cabin seemed the abode of chaos drear; 
The storm yet pattered on the cabin roof. 
Despair shone in his bright though languid eyes; as 

the vivid lightning lit 
His cabin gloom. Ah 1 what omen quoth he : 
'Tis foul, 'tis fair; It's the brooding mingled vision 

of hope, ambition, and despair. 



Til 1411 Of Oil Sfll, 



Who shall di'stiirb the brave, 
Oi' one leaf on their holy grave. 

The laicrel Is vowed to them: 

Leave the bay on its saered stem, 
Btit this, the rose, the fading rose 
Alike for slave and freeman grows. 



Bithver 



24 VOICE OF A NEW RACE. 

THE MAID OF OLUSTEE. 

'Twas twilight a chilling breeze 

Blew o'er swump and ])lain, 
Where fell that day. beneath the rain 

Of canister, shot and shell, — 
A thousand men-brave warriors, 

Mangleii and slain, 
Arid eight luindred more were maimed, 

Battlingthere foes to r<'pel ; 
The breeze wafted eight miles afar 

From the bloody Held, 
Thtir prayers, and groans, to where 

A maiden kneeled. 

Evening came, and the moon's soft light 

lit the battle's wreck, 
And lo, here and there, in heaps, the wounded 

and the slain were lain. 
Piled high betwixt the trees like sacrifices 

ready for the fire stack ; 
When, from Sanderson station came 

a maid of Samaritan fame, 
She was well laden with stores from the station, 
' tho' no commission was there. 

Sweet milk and cool water to battle with hunger 

brought from the weir, 
She came, child of the Union, loyal and true, 
Daring daughter of Florida, with oil to pour, 
And her silvery voice went to God in fervent prayer, 
As she knelt betwixt two heaps of soldiers there, 
Where the battle had fiercest raged, there to save. 
She knelt betwixt death and the grave. 

She wiped away the flowing blood, 
But, again and again it came oozing out. 
Twice the soldier had received a sabre thrust, 
And now, he lay dying in the dust. 



VOICE OF A NEW RACE. 25- 

The Lord giveth,the Lord taketh, mourned she, 
Blessed be the name of the Lord who saves. 

Louder than the murmuring rivulet close by, 
She heard a deep sorrowing lamenting sigh, 
And quickly turning to whence it came, 
She met the gaze of her former slave. 
Oh I you who waged this cruel war are where? 
Yes, this cold earth should be your bier. 

When she had bathed the features of the maimed^ 
The wounds of her lover and her slave, 
Their banners seized, the bar'd White and Blue, 
And, the star sprangled Red White and Blue. 
Back went the maid to Sanderson station, 
Back soon she came with horses and wagon. 

The moon had sunk below the pines, 

The stars went out in the blue azure sky, 

But the maid drovt by the light of the fagot tires. 

Eight miles away, at lightning speed, inspired 

By the love she bore foi' country and for home, 

She'd promised her lover nor slave should die alone. 

In lier wagon side by side they lay, the Blue, the Grey, 

Two who fought that day their country to save. 

But as the maid mounted to drive away. 

Not far off she heard the clash of steel, her bays. 

In the flickering fagot light saw sabres gleam, 

Aud charging shouts made the empyrean ring, it seemed, 

AVhat though carbines rattle tell the fight's begun? 
What though cannons belching break the doleful mon- 
otone? 
What if death await me down the road, am I alone? 
Have I no love, no fortitude, in heaven, no home? 
Begirt me, ye murderous arms, but my lover and slave 
God helping, e'er 'tis day, will be in Sanderson ville. 

Down the road, down the road, with lightning speed. 
Away away dashed her fiery steeds. 



36 VOICE OF A NEW RACE. 

Wliile louder and nearer came the clashing steel, 

Now through battle, neath clouds raised by flying 

wheels. 
Her mustang's feet awhile beat m sacred blood, 
As buckets dip, dip successionally in the ocean's flood. 

Now the brazen cannons steadily awfully roar. 

Now volleys from column to column pour, 

Now whole ranks of brave men deaths missels mow, 

And the shrill bugle notes o'er the war clouds soar, 

Blade crossed blade in the Howitzer's murderous blaze, 

Yet, on through this, hell's corridon, on swept the maid. 

One foot on the whiffle-tree one foot on the tongue. 

In their midst she rode while war gods sung. 

Determined her lover and slave to save. 

Though she drove o'er the dead on the edge of the grave. 

On: on daslied her mustangs, cruel and fleet, 

Leaping o'er fallen trees, crushing men 'neath their feet. 

Eight miles avvay e'er 'twas day in Sandersonville, 
Eight miles away Iromthe battle field stood the old mill, 
Whose ponderous wheel used to be turned by the rill, 
* The old farm house near by,on the top of the hill, 

There 'neath its roof as a child seeks its mother when 

distressed. 
The maid laid her lover and slave down to rest. 

Day dawn on fields of verdure green and wavy grain, 
And the peaa heralded the retreating warriors train, 
That left to the mercy of vultures, wounded and slain 
Comrades, who fought their country to save, their free- 
dom to gain. 
But, e'er the phalanx last column had passed. 
The maiden's lover and slave had breathed their last. 

In her wagon side by side again lay Blue and Grey, 
Two who fell yesterday eve at Olustoe, maimed in bat- 
tle array, 
They in youth in Ocean Pond had swam togi^ther,^ 



VOICE OE A NEW KACE. 2T 

And in death had cla8ped their cold hands in each oth- 
er's, 

'Tvzas friendships rite, they never had been foes, and the 
stri fe. 

Was not their own, though it won them a better life. 

Deep in a Floridian Glen, home of the sweet scented 
brier, 

Where a nightingale noonly sings and plays upon his 
lyre. 

From whose flowery grown walls, whicli nature builded 
on either hand. 

Like jets in a banquet ball, moistening below the silvery 
sand. 

Bursting out, leaping high, up m the oderiferou-* rose- 
mary air, 

A thousand veins of the mountain spouts the vnter clear. 

There in this lone retreat, wrapped in their g"iy s!noud, 

them d( 
a cloud 
Streaked with the noon sun's glare, shone. Red White 

and Blue, 
And the jet sprays fell from the blended radiant hue, 
Upon the soldiers' bier alike, whilst the burial rite An- 

nieta read, 
'Twas God's approval, yes 'twas his baptism of the he- 
V roic dead. 

Eleven vernal suns have spread their splendor and gone 

since then, 
Annieta yet lives in her old farm-house near the glen, 
Where the Orange and Pomegranate blossom ever and 

anon, where wave 
The lily white and sweet, -over her lover and her slave, 
And yearly on memorial day, mid the flowery fra- 
grance of May, 
She garlands the graves where rest the Blue and the 
Grey. 



28 VOICE OF A NEW RACE. 



BURIED ON SHOEE. 



Half mast the flags , red white and blue, 
Dim the lustre of each star, a victim 

To immortality has gone, a gallant Tar, 
Where fighting will be never more. 

Give way, let the procession pass on, 

O'the mournful tread and roll, 
Minute guns mark but his stay, above the sod 

Beneath which soon he must be laid. 

Ope wide ye gates, ye city of the dead, 

Let the solumn procession pass in, 
Comrades gather 'round his oaken bier, 

Now mariners their requiem volley fire. 

'Tis finished, the victory in heaven's won. 

Cherubim answer the minute gun, 
In peace his morning hstst come, 

They quicken their steps, unmuffle their drums. 



f aiBUfl fO fil il4¥l. 



30 VOICE OF A NEW RACE. 

TRIBUTE TO THE BRAVE, 

delivered at the National Cemetery, Hampton, Va., before Cailloux Post, No, 
2, G. A. K., of Norfolk, and hundreds of other people. May 30th, i88i. 

Comrades of the Grand Army of the Repulilic: — 

Upon this hallowed ground we have assembled to perform a 
duty enjoined upon us by the mandate of the cause in which 
those «)f our couiradcs, who lay asleep in thrse green moundc, 
gave up all earthly associations, to perpetuate the inheritance 
of posterity to freedom, based upon the Union victory, in the 
achievement of which live-thousand brave defenders of liberty 
sleep in these i^iounds which surround us No eulogy need 
be pronounced upon them here to day; no deep mouthed can- 
nons need roar in their praise; no bugle's blast, nor martial 
strains are needful ro proclaim their heroism; — the pesen of 
their praise lives in the enjoyment of our freedom. Their 
valor lives not alone in the written history of the conflict in 
which they fell, but in the hearts of their countrymen. In 
every cabin in this wide and beautiful South land, there is an 
unwritten history of him who went out from beneath its lowly 
roof in quest of freedom; who laid aside the master's hoe and 
axe, and took up the country's sword and rifle; who exchanged 
the plantation garb for the Nation's blue livery; who resolved 
rather to die in an effort for freedom, than continue upon 
earth a slave. And they went, not in companies, and in regi- 
ments; but in batallions, and brigades, until they numbered 
two hundred thousand, and here within these walls, the bones 
of a thousand of them rest 

TFe are here to-day, mindful that the Rebellion struggled for 
two years, each side fighting desperately, but the union side 
loosing continually. Here along this river,, General Mc Clel- 
lan's troops were encamped, engaged in the capture and return 
of fugitive slaves. General Fremont in the South-west, in 
keeping with the President's policy, is made to resign from the 
command of the army, because he armed Negroes in defense of 
the Union. Generals Phelps and Butler, down in the Gulf- 
state, found a brigade of free Negroes in tlie service of the 
rebels. The Chief of Police of New York city, informed the 
Negroes of that city, that they must desist drilling; — he could 



VOICE OF A NEW RACE. 31 

not protect them; and when it became necessary for the 
government to draft men for the army, Negroes were hung 
to lamp-posts and telegraph poles. Negro babes were pitched 
into the hireet, and their asylum burned by those who refused 
to unite Union and Liberty in the struggle. The men and 
their sons, who have fitted out the t^lnps that transported Ne- 
groes from Free Africa to Slave America, led the riots at 
the North, ageinst the lovers of freedom. J^ree Massachusetts, 
the haven of the fleeing fugitivi?, by her constitution, barred 
Negroes from her militia force. Not a state in the North, bore 
the name of a Negro upon her militia rolls; where Attucks fell, 
the ground was not consecrated to equal freedom yet. 
Bunker Hill was a myth: the surrender of Yorktown meant 
freedom only for the white man. Major Jeffries, a Tennesee- 
an, who at Mobile filled the place of regular in the American, 
army under General Stump, and saved the army from anihila- 
tion by the British, after peace and Independeuce, received 
thirty nine lashes upon his .bare back, for daring to strike a 
ruflBan, and from the effects of which he died. Notwithstand- 
ing Simeon Lee served in Virginia during the memorable 
Revolutionary struggle up to the close of the war ; — immediate- 
ly after the surrender at Yorktown, Lee was returned to his 
master, and finally died on his tobacco plantation. Virginia, 
true to her instincts of chivalry, as a mark of just recognition 
of the valor of the Negroes who fought in the war for inde- 
pendence; her legislature the year after the victory at York- 
town, manumitted several slaves who fought, with ami were mem- 
bers of her militia, and the free Negroes names were borne up- 
on her pension rolls, though the Negro fought side by side 
throughout the revolutinary war, with his white-skinned 
brother, the victory gained did not loosen the shackles of 
slavery rivited upon him, and he continued the same chattle. 
Heroism, whether upon the deck of Perry's fleet, or in the field 
with Andrew Jackson at New Orleans, seemed insufficient to 
destroy the wrong, — the upas of manhood, the curse of slavery. 
But Providence is equal to every emergency, and though it per- 
mitted for two hundred years the traffic, the flag that 
now floats [so proudly over our heads, was for a quarter of a 
century, the sole protecting symbol to the African-slave trade, 



■S2 VOICE OF A NEW RACE. 

upon the ocean, by the blood, and valor of those of our com- 
rades that lay speechless before us, in common with the mill- 
ions more whodid service for their country, and their homes, 
that dear old-nevr flag, has become the symbol of constitution- 
al liberty, and the inspiring genius of universal emancipation 
to mankind. 

There vrere days when the muse of freedom sang to the Na- ■ 
tion her reproachful song: ''Tear down the bloody sheen, it | 
shields a pirate's deck; — it binds our fellow man ill chains"! ■ 
But that was the flag of the fugitive slave law; the banner of 
Preston Brooks and Daniel Webster ; this is the flag of our . 
Country ; the emblem of religious liberty. 

The Christian looks upon the rainbow in the glowing sun-set, 
its variegated hues blending with a radiant sky, with reliant 
joy that the world will not be deluged again. The patriot 
gazes upon the streaming folds of the American banner as it 
kisses the blue azure, as it floats m the balmy air, its lucid 
stars shedding glory upon the place beneath, with gladdened 
heart that his country is free; and the mariner, as his bark 
nears the shore of his native land, greets the high hills of his 
native home "Ye, are the things that tower, whose smile 
makes glad, whose, frown is terrible. I have sailed in my boat 
at night, and when midway on the lake the stars went out, 
and down the mountain gorge, the wind came roaring, and I 
sat and eyed him break his thunder from the clouds, and 
smiled to see him shake his lightning o'er my head, and 
thought of other lands whose storms are summer flows to those 
of mine, and just have wished me there; — the thought that is 
free has checked that wish, and I have raised my hands and 
cried in my thraldom, to the furious wind; "blow on, this is 
the land of Liberty ! " 

Those black soldiers, and those white soldiers, have not 
died in vain. A just God has crowned their united effort for 
the redemption of their country, and we are here to-day in the 
enjoyment of the liberty their blood purchased for their inhabi- 
tants of tiie world. " No matter in what language his doom 
may have been pronounced ; no matter what complexion in- 
compatible to freedom, an Indian or an African sun may have 
burnt upon him; no matter in what disastrous battle his liberty 



VOICE OF A NEW RACE. 33 

may have been cloven down ; no matter with what solemnity 
he may have been devoted upon the altar of slavery; — the first 
moment he touches the sacred soil of our country ; the moment 
he stands deneath the folds of our blood-stained banner, — the 
altar and the god sink together in the dust, his soul walks 
abroad in her own majesty ; his body swells beyond the measure 
of his chains that burst from around him, and he stands re- 
deemed, regenerated, and disenthralled by the irresistable in- 
fluence of our free institutioBS. 

Sixteen hundred and twenty — what a vista to look back 
through! A period till now of gloom, dismay, acd tyranny. 
Oh ! what hopes, what fears and what maledictions. Two 
hundred and sixty years ago, the ancestry of the 200,000 Ne- 
groes, who in spite of terror meditated against them, with 
indifference to the un-Christian-like prejudice that existed 
against them, and in the face of the "black flag" raised against 
them; volunteered, yes^ mlunteered and entered the pro-slavery 
ranks of the Union Army. Tlieir ancestry were landed from 
that Dutch man of war, a few m les above where we now stand, 
and sold as chattle to the English settlers, and from 1620 to 
1860, they were sold, and tortured, and worked as cattle and 
beasts of burden, and their white comrades who lay here 
asleep, side by side with them; are those who were willing to 
purge the nation of the curse and sin their fore-fathers heaped 
upon it; and right well have they given atonement. 

The sacriflce the white man made for the Negro's freedom, 
however tardy, is ample to restore the link broken in the chain 
of brotherhood, by two hundred and forty years of inhuman 
slavery, and in recognition of that fact, we, the surviving rep- 
resentatives of that race, are here to-day with flowers to gar- 
land the graves of the sacrificed, and to pledge anew, our 
allied strength to the maintenence of the Union with Liberty, 
for which they gave their li/es. Well might the Chief Magis- 
trate of the Nation, when looking into the faces of sixty thou- 
sand veterans, scarred and maimed, have testified that during 
the long night of war. not a traitor in black skin was found. 
What attribute is this to a race, despised by too many of those 
who to'-day have a country and a home preserved to them 
through the industry and valor of its yeomanry. Name the 



^4 VOICE OF A NEW RACE. 

race that merits such a tribute ;— certainly it is not on this side 
of the Atlantic or this zone. Men more desperate, more san- 
o-uiue, may have followers; Hannibal across the Alps, may 
have crossed with the Father of his Country, the icy Deleware. 
We have heard of the six hundred and their daring ride; we 
have read about the brave men who fought at Lodi, and of the 
famed "Old Guard," at Marengo, and at Waterloo, and the 
applause that nations gave them as they rushed up to the can- 
non's mouth, and as they stood before a torrent of fire, to 
shield their leader Bonaparte, from harm. 

The iron nerve, the patriotic valor, the incomprehensible 
courage, the indubitable heroism of the 200,000 Negroes who 
entered the Union conflict for liberty and equality before the 
law ; their sufferings and privations, their long marches and 
stubborn fights, their impregnable alignments, the terrible 
charges endured and made, for the freedom of their race and 
country, entitles them, and the thousand of them buried here, 
to be canonized in the choicest gifts of nature. No braver 
men than they, ever stood before as brave an enemy. 

Comrades, let us pause a moment, hark! Be as silent as you 
were at New Market heights, when at early- dawn, you w^ent 
down the hill with nipple-less guns ; do we hear the bugle's 
call of forward, — double-quick? And now do we hear the 
echo of ou^ shout, "Remember Fort Pillow"? — The bugle-call 
has gone like the spirit of our comrades who fell before the 
enemies murderous guns, to the God of battles; and the shout, 
to the region of Lethe's wharf, and lingers upon the banks of 
that River. God forbid that I should say aught to-day, at this 
hour, to arouse any of resentment, feeling towards those 
brave men who killed our comrades in the endeavor to 
perpetuate slavery upon us. Yet how prudent for us to re- 
member that from Port Hudson to Richmond, the blood of our 
brothers, moistened the soil ; that their bones lie scattered in 
front of every deemed-impregnable work, Wherever the fight 
was strongest, they were. Where the enemy's cyclone of fire 
swept, they fell the thickest. When the enemy resorted to 
savage butchery, they were the victims ; it was they at Peters- 
burg, who felt the quaking mines; and they at Wagner with 
the uuts of their muskets, won the signal victory. 



VOICE OF A NEW RACE. 35 

The civilized world stood on tip-toe. as a troop of unarmed 
l^egroes daslied up over the ramparts of the Gibraltar of the 
Mississippi, and threw in their hand-grenades, and bags of 
cotton, without artillery to shield, or cavalry to protect them; 
they had enemies in front of them, enemies to the right and 
left of them; enemies in their rear. They fought, they bled, 
they conquered. They were not filled with hatred, their 
bosoms did not heave revengefully toward their lords, who 
confronted them; their pulse did not beat angrily because 
their freedom was denied them. They did not massacre their 
prisoners in retaliation for Chal.aers' feast of blood, at Fort 
Pillow. Their fight was a Christian warfare for religious liber- 
ty, and God blessed them with victory, ,md crowned theiv 
effort with freedom, and in the enjoyment of that dearly pur- 
chsed freedom, v.^e are here to-day to do reverence to their 
memory. 

My countrymen, there are gathered in the Nurional cemeter- 
ies, the remains of over 40, 000 black Union soldiers; and 300,- 
€00 white Union soldiers. These maimed, mutilated bodies, 
are the Nation's holocaust, sacrficed upon the altar of free 
government, for the perpetuity of the principles of equal civil 
and political rights for all men. To you and to your posterity, 
the duty of maintaining and preserving those principles and 
this government has devolved. Such an important trust can- 
not be lightly assumed; and here around the graves of our 
fallen heroes, let us resolve to rededicate ourselves with re- 
newed energy to the task of steadily advancing these princi- 
ples, until man in this government shall be known by his 
virtue and worth, and not by the color of his skin. 

That I have spoken more particularly to-day concerning 
the black soldier, is not because they fought better than their 
white brothers with whom they were allied. The tribute I 
have aimed at their qualities, their heroism and patient devo- 
tion to the flag that for nearly a century "had only been to 
them a flag of stripes, on which no star of glory had ever 
shone for them," The white soldier is equally deserving of, 
only that black soldiers fought under vastly more disadvan- 
tageous circumstances, 

My comrades, we are not here to- day in the brazen pomp 



36 VOICE OF A NEW RACE . 

of conquest; 'tis not to commemorate the day we met the 
enemy in the open field, and put them to fight by the favor 
of the God of battle; but to strew flowers on the graves of 
our fallen brothers. Our mission is the peace-votive offer- 
ing of a grateful people, to the memory of their brave de- 
liverers from a cruel bondage. Here too, are the remains of 
those, 

"Who too honest, or too proud, to feign 
A love they never cherished, 
Beyond Virginia's border line, 
Their patriotism perished. 

While others hailed in distant skies, 

Our eagle's dusky pinion, 
They only saw the mountain bird 

Stoop o'er the 'Old Dominion.'" 

Not they alone, are responsible for the cause of the war ; 
not they alone are accountable for the bondage through 
which we passed en route to civilization and freedom. Igno- 
rance entailed the two hundred and fifty years of slavery 
upon the black man. 

Africa and her ignorant, war-like tribes, have a portion, 
and the greater portion of the guilt and sin of the curse of 
Negro slavery, to bear which under this "State's Rights" 
theory, these confederates that sleep beneath these green 
mounds, gave up their lives, and their fortunes, clinging to 
their principles, as does the shipwrecked mariner to his last 
plank, when tempests and black night environ him. Heroic- 
aly they suffered, fought, and died. 

Comrades, we have also a garland for their graves,. The 
Poiet expresses the sentiment aud principles of our Grand 
Army: 

"Roll not a drum, sound not a clarion note 
Of haughty triumph to the silent sky: 
Hushed be the shout of joy in every throat, 
And veiled be the flash of pride in every eye. 



VOICE OF A NEW RACE. 3t 

Not with Te Deunis loud and high hosannas, 
Greet we the awful victory we have won, 

But with our arms reversed and lowered banners, 
We stand- our work is done ! 

Thy work is done, God, terrible and just. 

Who laid'st upon our hearts and hands this task, 

And kneeling with our foreheads in the dust, 
We venture peace to ask. 

Bleeding and writhing underneath our sword, 

Prostrate our brethren lie, 
Struck down by Thee through us avenging Lord — 

By Thy dread hand laid low. 

For our own guilt have we been doomed to smite 
These our own kindred, Tiiy great laws defying. 

These, our own flesh and blood, who now unite 
In one thing only with us — bravely dying. 

Dying how bravely, yet how bitterly ! 

Not for the better side, but for the worse, 
Blindly and madly striving against Thee 

For the bad cause where Thou hast set Thy curse. 

At whose defeat we may not raise our voice, 
Save in the def p thanksgiving of our prayers, 

Lord ! we have fought the fight ! But to rejoice 
Is ours no more than theirs. 

Call back Thy dreadful ministers of wrath 
Who have led on our hosts to this great day; 

Let our feet halt now in the avenger's path. 
And bid our weapons stay. 

Upon our land. Freed om'^s inheritance. 

Turn Thou once more the splendor of Thy face; 

Where Nations serving Thee, to light advance, 
Give us again our place. 



38 VOICE OF A NEW RACE. 

For our bewildering past, pros])erity, 
Not all Thy former ill-requitted grace, 

But this one boon — Oh ! grant us still to be 
The home of Hope to the whole human race. 



IIW MAEKEf lllglTS. 



40 VOICE OP A NEW RACE. 

]N'EW MARKET HEIGHTS. 

"Freedom their battle cry, " 
'''■Freedom or learn to die.'''' 

Bokcr. 

At New Market Heights, there Afric's lineage stood, 
And poured out copiously its best blood ; 
Of them I would sing, my lyre's restrung, 
And allures not diffidently to the song, 
Paternal muse with thy patriot valor reign 
. Su^^reme, and the brightness of ages regain, 
In the deep recess of the past 
Lower me, to where the battle's blast 
Has been given to oblivion, the sigh 
Of dying patriots let greet me nigh. 
And my thoughts waft on memory's wing. 
To where their charging shouts yet ring. 

If mine the task indulgent muse vouchsafed. 
Whilst I commune 'mongst bones that paved, 
And flesh that bridged the chasm o'er. 
Where Butler numbered five hundred and more 
Of Afric's sous, who for liberty fell, 
In the corridors of a stockaded hell. 
I'll essay their deeds of valor done. 
By. which the nation its victory won. 

'Twas early in the grey Sejitember morn, 

E're the suus fulgent light had shown. 

Whilst departed patriots looked out from above, 

Emitting their twinkling silvery light of love, 

Upon the silent bivouac of freedom's sons. 

Weary and resting upon their bayonetless guns; 

Quite near the bank of the James, 

Just above where their own fathers' names, 

Were first enrolled as ignoble slaves, 

The Second Brigade^ valiant men and braves, 

Saw a meteor like rocket burst high, 

High up m the dewey morning sky, 



VOICE OP A NEW RACE. 41 

Then came the summons prepare to away, 
Butler leads to New Market heights at day. 
Beat the long roll, sound the alarm, 
Break the monotone and the dead calm, 
And the bugle's clarion notes aroused, awoke, 
The host that waited e're day broke ; 
Infantry, cavalry prepared to make away, 
Butler leads to New Market heights at day. 

From rank to rank the summons ran. 
Bayonets rattle and clank of sabres began. 
With whatted steel the sturdy axe-men, 
Capless rifle-men, horseless cavalry men. 
Formed on that plain in battle array ; 
Butler leads to New Market heights at day. 

When the flash of dawn was brcaklBg, 

Their leader rode in front, and speaking, 

Gave the charging shout '■'■Bememher Fort Pillow^'''' 

And their banners brightened in the mellow 

Light of heaven; '-'-FoncarcV they marched away. 

Following Butler to New Market heights that day. 

Went down the hill across the marsh, — 

Into the brook — there halted— ah ! how harsh 

The rebels fire opened upon them, artillery 

Hail swept the run, and the infantry 

Broke, the column wavered the' not in dismay, 

Following Butler to New Market heights that day. 

Again the shattered columns form and again advance 
To firmer ground, tho' the redoubt hurl'd like an 

avalanche. 
In quick succession, bursting bomb° and canister shot, 
But with closed ranks the column, fearing not 
Unheedful of the iron hail bent its way, 
Followmg Butler to New Market heights that day. 



42 VOICE OF A NEW RACE. 

Now the head of the column of fours go down 
Under the murderous fire and the hissing song 
Of the enemys shells, now the axe men spring 
To the abatis high and long, now their axes ring 
Out on the morning air, they were swept away, 
Following Butler to New Market heights that day. 

The flags are where, do they kiss the morning light, 
Do they wave in the battle's gale, are their stars bright, 
Illumining the path of the brave ? riddled and torn. 
With the dead they lay. Soon again they shone, 
In the first gleam of the rising- sun's ray, 
Following Butler to New Market heights that day. 

Upon the brigade each felt that all was placed. 
Their race and country's future honored or disgraced, 
Hence with Spartan courage they the charge renewed, 
And in hot haste the Nation's enemy purs'^ed, 
And sweat and blood from pore and wound inveigh, 
Following Butler to New Market heights that day. 

'■'■Forward^ forward ! " rung the command, the flags are 

up again, 
The axe-men grin, and with a shout go over the slain, 
To a second line of ahatis. The welkin's aglow. 
The advancing brigade shouts, ' ' Rememher Fort Pillow /" 
And with a will and spirit they clear the way. 
Following Butler to New Market heights that day . 

Down the dismounted cavalrymen fall by ranks. 
The Infantry an adamantine wall on the flanks, 
Close up briskly on right and left and receive 
The infilading fire from the brazen crest, breathe 
They not a word in complaint, freedom's impulse obey, 
Following Butler to New Market heights that day. 

Now the black axe-men tear from the sod the huge logs, 
Which science and treason placed deep in the bogs, 
Skill gave way to freedom's might in the dastardly fight, 



VOICE OF A NEW RACE, . 43 

And the black brigade, with capless rifles and starry 

light, 
Go through the gap to the Rebel's hell in gallant array, 
Following Butler to New Market heights that day. 

Volley after volley poured, cinnon after cannon roared, 
Like reapers in a field a thousand artillerists mowed 
In the gap, the brigade's advancing files of four. 
Yet on through the flood of death still the brigade pour, 
Their battle cry, Remerriber Fort Pillow^ the enemy dismay. 
Following Butler to New Market heights that day. 

Hark ! above the raging carnage swells the shout, 
'• No quarters to Niggers,'''' with hope of a rout. 
But the brigade was not deterred, they retaliate 
The defiant yells. Remember Fort Pillow, the fate 
Of its garrison how it fell, on through the fray. 
Following Butler to New Market heights that day. 

On for the redoubt over the rampart they go. 

Not a rifle was fired, not a shot at the foe, 

By the weight of the column the redoubt is theirs, 

And the enemy routed, the chivalry scattered everywhere. 

Victorious shouts the empyrean ring in repay, 

Following Butler to New Market heights that day. 

In the track of the brigade lay the loyal dead, 
Afric's hecatomb, her lineage's pyre to liberty wed, 
Their upturned countenances to the burning sun, 
Were appeals to Mars for their race's freedom won, 
Five hundred lives on the patriotic altar lay. 
Following Butler to New Market heights that day. 

No marble shaft or granite pile mark the spot 
Where they fell — their bones lay harvested from sun-rot^ 
In the Nation's cities of the dead . Hannibal led 
No braver than they through Alpine snow, nor wed 
To freedom were Greece's phalanx more, who o'er gory 

clay 
Followed Butler to New Market heights that day. 



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